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Show Monopolies SENATOR Borah of Idaho agrees with Mr. Secretary Sec-retary Bryan that all monopolies are bad and should be crushed. Ex-iSenator Boveridge and J Mr. Perkins believe that monopolies are necos-Bary necos-Bary to bring out the full resources of the country coun-try and to make them available. It seems a plain case that the great work of the country cannot be parried on except through mighty combinations of capital. When thlB is done, it is perfectly natural for the managers to try to make the most they can out of their enterprise. en-terprise. That is human nature. To regulate this disposition and keep it under control, the Interstate Commerce commission was instituted. And to prevent unnatural incomes an income tax, with a sliding scale, has been passed. If these precautions are not sufficient to hold avaricious men in check, then, it seems to us, only one other remedy presents itself, which is for the central government to do the work as it is doing in Alaska organize and carry on the work. That would mean a slowing down of buBi-nesB buBi-nesB in the first place, and second a centralized government, which in the end would undermine the republic and turn it over to some gentleman on horseback. It would, moreover, chill the ambition and the efforts of that class of men who thus far have been the Industrial kings of the country, and because of their work have made ours the great world power that it is. Many of them have been grasping and arbitrary arbi-trary and unfair, but by the very nature of their work they have given tens of millions of poor men employment, and have made possible a profitable market for the products of tens of millions more men. It seems to us that the proper thing to do would be to give the brains and energies of such men full swing so long as they are right, and to keep watch and restrain them when they begin to encroach upon the rights of leBs gifted men. Imagine all the great works being carried on by the government, even as the postal Bervice is now carried on, and then imagine a magnetic but unscrupulous man, one of Napoleon's character, char-acter, president, does any one think that such a man would give up his office when his term was out? |
